


by my side

by verseau



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 17:48:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17565152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verseau/pseuds/verseau
Summary: Sometimes he forgets that Jaesung isn’t his son, too, and it hurts when Jaesung slips and calls himappafirst thing in the morning, sleepy and clingy. He sees how it hurts Kyungsoo as well, how he turns away when Jaesung reaches for Jongin first.





	by my side

Jongin holds Jaesung at his hip, standing at the door of the bathroom to watch Kyungsoo bandage the bloody wound in his palm. 

“Appa,” Jaesung says, rubbing his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

Kyungsoo’s jaw is set tight, something dark and angry behind them. He doesn’t usually show up with wounds or visible pain, so Jongin wonders what it means that he looks this bad, movements stiff under his sleek black suit. Yet when he replies to Jaesung, his voice is so soft. “Nothing, honey, why are you up?”

It’s six o’clock in the morning. Did he just get home? God, he left yesterday morning. “‘S morning,” Jaesung says. “I’m hungry.”

“Jongin will get you some rice,” Kyungsoo tells him, ripping the bandaging tape off with his teeth. 

Jaesung pouts. “But I want you to give it.”

Jongin shifts Jaesung and pats his hip. “I think your appa’s tired, honey, I can make it perfectly fine.”

“But I want appa to make it,” Jaesung whines.

“Jaesung,” Jongin starts to say, but Kyungsoo shakes his head, “no, it’s fine, I’ll do it. You want fried rice?” Jaesung nods, smiling wide. Kyungsoo smiles back at him. “Okay, go get ready with Jongin and I’ll have it ready for when you’re done, okay?” He looks at Jongin and adds, “be thorough,” and Jongin tries not sigh. He can do rice fine enough, there’s no need for Kyungsoo forcing himself for this. Still, this is not the time to argue, so he hoists Jaesung further up and makes his way up a flight of stairs to the third floor and Jaesung’s wing of the house. 

-

Jongin started nannying for Do Kyungsoo three years ago, when Jaesung was just a year old. At first it was a day job, a quick morning shift before he switched to another family at night, but a month in, Kyungsoo told him he wanted him to live-in and offered to triple his pay grade. Obviously Jongin said yes. 

The house is big, huge, three stories and plenty of room on the northern border of Seoul, in Ilsan. Jongin has a room the size of his old studio on the third floor with Jaesung, and Kyungsoo, when he is home, occupies most of the second. 

Jongin loves his job. He went to school for this, specialized childcare and childhood development, and getting to play with kids professionally is an absolute dream. He loves Jaesung. In some ways, he’s glad that he stopped nannying for other families, because Jaesung is perfect, the core and center and light of Jongin’s life, why he wakes up in the morning on bad days, why he goes to sleep happy and content. Sometimes he forgets that Jaesung isn’t his son, too, and it hurts when Jaesung slips and calls him appa first thing in the morning, sleepy and clingy. He sees how it hurts Kyungsoo as well, how he turns away when Jaesung reaches for Jongin first. 

Jongin loves his job. He loves Jaesung. He doesn’t want to leave, ever, even though he knows one day he will. 

Kyungsoo is in organized crime, and Jongin is 99% positive Kyungsoo is the boss. So there’s that. 

-

“Nini-pooh,” Jaesung says, putting his arms up so Jongin can slip his bear sweater, the matching one Jongin has and Jaesung’s favorite, over his head. His black hair ruffles, and he scrunches his nose when Jongin fixes the fit. 

“Honey,” Jongin acknowledges. If he’s a brown teddy bear, the joke his friends gave years ago in endearment for his skin tone and softness, then Jaesung is his honey, the sweet thing that keeps him going. Jongin called him honey from the second day they met, and now Jaesung refuses any other pet name, ignored Kyungsoo during his terrible twos if Kyungsoo tried anything else. He’s Jongin’s honey, and nothing else. 

“Abeoji is angry?”

“No,” Jongin lies, running the brush through his hair, “just tired, and sometimes he looks like it a little when he forgets his glasses.”

“Oh,” Jaesung muses, “okay. But him’s hurt?”

“He’s hurt,” Jongin corrects. “He probably just hit his hand too hard on a door.” He bites his cheek. He hates lying to Jaesung. 

Downstairs, in the kitchen, Jaesung tells Kyungsoo, “Nini says you hit your hand on a door, appa!”

Kyungsoo looks over from where he’s plating fried rice onto Jaesung’s Pororo plate. He glances at Jongin, and Jongin raises an eyebrow. “Uh, yeah, I was walking too fast and just, bam, super hard.”

“That’s why I always tell you not to run,” Jongin tells Jaesung, placing him in his high chair. 

“But you run with me!”

Kyungsoo places Jaesung’s plate in front of him. “Oh?”

Jongin scowls at Jaesung, who spoons his rice into his mouth with a smug look. “Only in the playroom, where there’s carpet. Tattletale.”

“Am not!” Jaesung protests, the worst insult. 

“You’re a baby snitch,” Jongin teases, but jumps a little when Kyungsoo drops his plate in front of him with a loud noise. 

“Don’t use that word,” Kyungsoo says, face tense. 

“I’m sorry,” Jongin mumbles, looking away. 

“Appa, you made Nini sad!”

Kyungsoo twists his mouth. “Jaesung. Eat.”

Jaesung pouts, but he’s a good boy, and he knows when to discern serious voices, and keeps quiet. Breakfast is a silent affair. 

After, they move Jaesung to the living room and early morning cartoons and bring the dishes to the kitchen. Kyungsoo puts them in the sink and makes like he’s going to wash them, but Jongin rolls his eyes and pushes him to the side, squeezes soap onto the sponge, washes the few dishes and puts them to dry on the rack. Kyungsoo is silent. It isn’t until Jongin finishes, dries his hands with a towel, turns around so his back is against the counter, that Kyungsoo steps close. 

‘My body hurts,” he says, looking up at Jongin. 

“Okay,” Jongin says blankly. He hopes his face isn’t betraying anything right now. 

Kyungsoo’s mouth twists. “Nini—“

“Don’t call me that,” Jongin tells him, looking away, to the fridge and the Polaroid pictures on there. Jongin and Jaesung at Disney in Japan, Jongin and Jaesung at the dog park walking Meokmul, Jongin and Jaesung playing with Baekhyun and Yixing’s kids at the beach. Jongin and Jaesung. “I raise him, the least you could do is fucking stay alive.”

Jongin feels his blood boil when Kyungsoo has the nerve to say, “it’s your job to raise him.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Jongin hisses, head whipping back around to glare at Kyungsoo. He wishes he could yell, but Jaesung is close and always listening. Kyungsoo always pushes him to the extremes of emotion, and Jongin hates when that becomes a bad thing. “You’re the one who insists on it, who won’t fucking marry me—“

“It’s not safe,” Kyungsoo snaps. 

“He’s my kid!” So angry, so quickly. “You’re my—“ God, what is Kyungsoo to him? His soulmate, his one true, the worst and best thing that ever happened to Jongin? Nothing feels adequate. “You’re mine. The rest of your bullshit doesn’t affect that.”

Kyungsoo steps even closer, touching at the knees, the bright warmth of their body heat. Jongin wants to kick him out. Jongin wants to lock him inside their room and never let him leave. “I’m sorry.”

Kyungsoo is not a man who apologizes, yet he apologizes to Jongin so often. Jongin feels all fight deflate, just like that. “You promised,” he whispers fiercely. “You promised me.” Kyungsoo keeps a lot of the details from Jongin, but he promised Jongin no more action, that he wouldn’t put himself any closer to death than he already is. And he’s so close. 

“I’m sorry,” Kyungsoo murmurs. “Minseok wouldn’t do what he has to do and I had no choice.”

Jongin rolls his eyes. He wants to say _you always have a choice_ , but Kyungsoo thinks he’s naïve, too innocent. “Baby,” Kyungsoo continues, bottom lip poking out a little. Do Kyungsoo, pouting. 

“You don’t get to call me baby right now.” Kyungsoo brings his hand up to curve around Jongin’s cheek and instinct curves Jongin into the touch, the calloused lines of Kyungsoo’s big hand. 

“You’re always my baby,” Kyungsoo tells him. “Even when you hate me.”

“Stop fishing. You know I don’t hate you.”

“Are you sure,” Kyungsoo murmurs, pressing a kiss to Jongin’s collarbone, “wanna hear you say it.”

“Nini?” Jaesung calls out from the living room. 

“Coming!” Jongin yells back, but Kyungsoo says, “kiss me first, please. Missed you.”

Jongin is old enough to admit he has a petty streak, and instead he steps to the side, out of Kyungsoo’s space, and says, “sorry, the child I get paid to raise called me. Gotta do my job.”

Kyungsoo winces. “I didn’t—“ Jaesung calls for Jongin again, so he ignores Kyungsoo and leaves the kitchen. Intent or not, he did. 

-

Once, early on in their relationship, Jongin tried sneaking into Kyungsoo’s room to cuddle without waking him. He gave no warning, no indications that he wanted it. He turned the knob slowly, socks near-silent on the wood floor, and by the time he was a foot into the door, Kyungsoo had him pushed against a wall, his forearm to his throat and calm murder in his eyes. It took him no time at all to realize it was Jongin, not a long awaited murderer in the night, but Jongin didn’t need to be told twice. 

Now, two hours after putting Jaesung to bed, he knocks, one long _rap_ and two short _taps_ before opening the door and shutting it behind him. Kyungsoo is in bed when Jongin enters, navy sheets bunched around his waist, sat up and staring at Jongin with bleary eyes. “Ba—Jongin?”

Jongin says nothing; he pulls his shirt off as he walks forward, sheds the rest of his clothing and his socks at the foot of the bed. Kyungsoo’s bed is almost as familiar as his own, his lap is Jongin’s favorite place in the world, and little else makes him as secure and safe as Kyungsoo’s hands on his waist, pulling him in and looking up. “Baby,” Kyungsoo greets. Jongin says nothing, he doesn’t need to, he prepared himself while showering for bed, so it’s easy to push down Kyungsoo’s grey pajama pants, jerk him until he’s hard, slide himself down and down and down until his hole is stuffed full of Kyungsoo’s cock. Kyungsoo’s eyes are big, dark in the blackness of the room. Jongin lifts his palm and closes his eyelids with his thumb, unable to bear the thought that Kyungsoo might see him. No one knows him better, and that scares him sometimes, scares him now.

Kyungsoo is an art thief. Jongin doesn’t know how he fell into Kyungsoo, this heart-grabbing ache, this lonesome love, this absolute devotion, but he knows that when he first kissed Kyungsoo in the kitchen the day after Jaesung’s second birthday, he knew by then that Kyungsoo was an art thief, that he engaged in dangerous and sometimes terrible things, that things were bound to be complicated and messy. He kissed him, anyway. 

He regrets nothing, believes in his heart that he was destined to find Jaesung and Kyungsoo and have them in his life, but sometimes he is terrified. He is terrified now. 

“Don’t cry,” Kyungsoo whispers, wiping the tears on Jongin’s cheeks, “sweetheart, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, don’t cry.”

Jongin shakes his head, angrily wipes his tears away, and rides Kyungsoo with double the force, intent on coming and making him come and forgetting this fear in the morning. He presses the heel of his palms to his eyes and takes a deep, stuttering breath. God. What’s wrong with him. 

“Hey, no, come on,” Kyungsoo says, “baby, don’t cry, I love you, don’t cry.” Kyungsoo lifts him off and lays him on his side, and Jongin can’t help curling in on himself, tears falling despite the loud screaming inside his head, the thousands of images of Kyungsoo’s death that play behind his eyes, Kyungsoo in jail with no way to touch or kiss or hold him, Jaesung without his father. His heart is tight, spasming, something out of a heart attack pamphlet, this familiar mindless fear, the certainty that things are or will be wrong. Fuck, what the fuck. He was doing so well lately; how did a stupid hand wound tip him this far over? Kyungsoo pulls the comforter over their bodies and curls around Jongin’s body, pulling his head into his neck and guiding him through and past this panic attack, “in, two, three, out, two, three, in, out,” over and over again until Jongin can breathe without choking on guilt and fear. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, eyes closed tight. 

“Don’t,” Kyungsoo says, rubbing his hands through Jongin’s long black hair, “don’t, you have nothing to apologize for. I love you, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said what I said earlier, I should’ve kept my promise. I’m sorry.”

Jongin takes a long, stuttering breath. “I’m just—I knew what to expect. I just want…” He swallows, lowers his whisper even more. “I want it to be safe to marry you.”

“I’m trying,” Kyungsoo says, voice cracking. “Almost, I swear.” 

“I want almost now,” Jongin says. 

Kyungsoo kisses his forehead, a soft brush of lips on Jongin’s cheeks, his nose. “We’re gonna move to the States, gonna get a house with a yard and pool for Jaesung and Meokmul,” Kyungsoo starts. 

“California,” Jongin murmurs into Kyungsoo’s chest. “In Koreatown. Want Jaesung to grow up with kids who look like him.”

“Okay,” Kyungsoo promises. “Gonna open your daycare, gonna open a movie theatre.”

“A legal establishment,” Jongin warns. 

When things are lighthearted, Kyungsoo jokes _the parameters of the law are fluid and questionable_. This is not lighthearted. “I swear. I’m going to leave all of that behind.” 

“And you’re gonna marry me,” Jongin whispers. 

Kyungsoo kisses Jongin’s forehead again. “And I’m gonna marry you.”

“I want Jaesung’s adoption papers in my hand,” Jongin reminds him. One of Jongin’s worst fears, tied in with the death or imprisonment of Kyungsoo, is that he has no legal protection or guardianship of Jaesung. Kyungsoo’s parents are dead and his brother doesn’t speak to him, Jaesung’s mother is somewhere in Japan with a new identity and fierce resentment of her ex and son, so the idea that if something happened, Jongin would lose Jaesung to some distant relative or the fucking state— It makes his blood boil. Jaesung is _his_ kid. Just as much as he’s Kyungsoo’s. Jongin would lose his mind if that was challenged. 

“I could just give you the forged copy,” Kyungsoo tries, like he always does. 

“Kyungsoo,” says Jongin. 

“I know, I know,” Kyungsoo sighs. “Sleeping here tonight?”

Jongin nods, scooting closer to Kyungsoo’s body, less curled up and more open to the warm hand around his waist, the fingers dancing on his chest. 

“I’m sorry for what I said this morning about it being your job,” Kyungsoo mutters into his hair. “I had a bad day, but that’s no excuse, and I shouldn’t have even said it. I don’t believe that at all.” He sighs. “You’re a better father to him than I am. He’s your son.”

Pity doesn’t work between the two of them. Jongin worked hard to make sure Kyungsoo saw him as an equal, even before they fell into each other, and Kyungsoo values honesty above all things. Jongin knows Kyungsoo isn’t fishing for compliments and reassurance, and he wouldn't give them either way. “He knows you love him, but you have to try harder when we move. You have to be around more than half the week.”

“I know,” Kyungsoo whispers. 

“Thank you for the apology,” says Jongin. Maybe he will forgive him tomorrow. Today, the closeness and hushed promises are enough. 

-

“Appa!” Jaesung shouts several weeks later, “you’re a cheater!”

 

“Am not,” Kyungsoo protests, even as he knocks his car in Mario Kart into Jaesung’s, pushing him behind and laughing when he regains first place. Above the television, the Hopper painting Kyungsoo tells guests is a knockoff hangs. Jongin sits lengthwise on the opposite end of the sofa, Meokmul dozing on his thighs, feet just barely brushing Kyungsoo’s side as he house hunts on his laptop. California is ridiculously expensive, and even though they found the locations for Jongin’s daycare and Kyungsoo is in the process of buying a struggling theatre to transform it into a foreign film theatre, they still don’t have an actual home. Kyungsoo has ridiculous standards, but Jongin only cares about location. 

“You’re mean,” Jaesung pouts when Kyungsoo beats him for the second race in a row. Jaesung won the first few, but then he made the mistake of telling Kyungsoo not to treat him like a baby. 

“You said you’re a big boy,” Kyungsoo reminds him. “Big boys don’t cry when they lose.”

“Well, you’re mean,” Jaesung repeats, even more upset at the reminder or his self-betrayal. He throws the controller on the floor and crosses his arms. Kyungsoo snorts, and leans down to pick it up. 

“Don’t pick it up,” Jongin says, glancing over for just a second before redirecting attention back to the laptop. “Jaesung knows better than to be so rude. He’ll pick it up himself.”

“But Nini—“ Jaesung whines. 

“I can get it,” Kyungsoo says, and makes to pick up the controller again. Jongin tries not to sigh. 

“Kyungsoo,” Jongin says. Kyungsoo sits back up. “Jaesung-ah, five, four,” and he counts down on his fingers, too. Jaesung looks like he might hold out to prove a point, but at _two_ , he scrambles off the couch to pick up the controller and hand it back to Kyungsoo. 

“That’s how you show us you’re not a baby,” Jongin tells him. He’s such a brat sometimes. God, he loves him. “You gonna apologize to abeoji?”

Jaesung climbs back onto the sofa and onto Kyungsoo’s lap, gripping the fabric of his shirt and burying his face into Kyungsoo’s chest. “‘M sorry,” he mumbles. 

“For?” Jongin prompts. 

“Was rude and bad, won’t do again,” he says, Kyungsoo kisses the top of his head. Jongin is so fond. 

“It’s okay, honeybear,” Kyungsoo says. “What shall we have for lunch?”

“Chicken!” Jaesung exclaims, slapping Kyungsoo’s collarbone in excitement. “Lots of chicken!”

“You’re just like your Nini, huh,” says Kyungsoo, holding Jaesung’s hand between his. “Order in?” 

“Or you could cook,” Jongin offers. 

“Or… we could order in.” Kyungsoo peeks at Jongin. “Or I can go get it?”

“We’ll go together,” says Jongin. 

“But I’m tired,” pouts Jaesung. “I’m so sleepy.”

Kyungsoo raises his eyebrows. “You were just yelling at me.”

Jaesung pokes his tongue between his teeth. “I’m _so_ sleepy, abeoji. Order in, order in, order in, please!”

Jaesung usually wins, especially in these small battles, and it makes something in Jongin’s heart soar when he watches Kyungsoo scroll through his phone, eyes squinting behind his glasses, tongue poking out between his teeth. God. These are Jongin’s boys.


End file.
